Political Parties

I can only speak in terms for America in this, as I really don't know very well the government systems of other nations.

What is the purpose of political parties anymore? In today's world, most people will "side" with a party, and retain a horrific loyalty to it for better or for worse.

When people go to vote at elections, they don't care about who they're voting for, the vote for the party. They have an odd assumption that every single person in that party stands for exactly what the party stands for.

Would it not be better to get rid of "political parties" all together? This would force voters to actually need to look at the specific and individual beliefs of those they vote for, instead of for who they think they stand for.

Politicians are as independent and different from each other as everyone else is. Each have their own political ideology and beliefs. Those who "mostly" have the same beliefs form a party, for which they have set standards for. Eventually, the same beliefs that brought these people together become "the beliefs" of the party, and overshadow everything else and all the differences the individual members support.

What if you vote for a Democrat, because he's a Democrat, who you think will share your belief in pro-choice, but once that politician gets into office, they continuously vote for pro-life?

What if you vote for a Republican, because he's a Republican, who you think will share your belief of war in Iraq, but once that politician gets into office, they continuously vote for withdraw?

What does your representatives truly stand for? Are they, in reality, just going under the party name for a free elected job? A political position is better as a paying job for the rich than an actual position to pass legislation to help the masses, anymore these days.

However [political parties] may now and then
answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things,
to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled
men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for
themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very
engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Farewell Address, Sep. 17, 1796

For the most part, Democrats are loyally liberal. It's the Republicans who get too wishy-washy. We got good ones but while the Democratic party is going further and further off the rails into extreme leftist territory, the Repubs are putting up liberal moderates who, IMO, are tanking the party. I agree that political parties are becoming useless anymore, hence why I don't look at a party as much as I do ideology. Even though, ideology, more often that not, will also still align with the parties.

Partisan Democracy is a sham. Some form of direct democracy would be the ideal. But in the meantime you can't really ban parties, that would infringe on Freedom of Speech/Freedom to Assemble.